The Di Sione Secret Baby. Майя Блейк

wasn’t lost on Rahim. Each time he sat down he felt its oppressive weight. Each time he made a decision that drew a frown, or a protest from a council mired in the old ways, the weight of that frustrating responsibility pressed down harder on him.

      He smiled wryly.

      There had been a time when he’d gladly have tossed the desk onto the pyre and gleefully watched it burn in an all-night bonfire. Preferably surrounded by three dozen sycophants and an endless supply of willing females.

      Unfolding his arms, he touched the left side of his chin, where a remnant of his old ways resided in the form of a scar earned while abseiling down a sheer cliff face on a stupid dare.

      That adrenaline-fuelled, life-endangering roller-coaster living had come to an abrupt end with the death of his father six months ago.

      Then he’d been forced to return home. Forced to face the path his life had taken...

      Cutting that mental road trip short, he pressed the intercom.

      ‘Harun, have the state guest rooms in the east wing prepared. And delay my trip for another three days.’

      ‘But... Your Highness...are you sure?’ the middle-aged man enquired.

      Rahim suppressed a sigh. He was sick to the back teeth of his chief aide’s second-guessing. If the man weren’t a veritable mine of information on everything to do with Dar-Aman, Rahim would’ve fired him a long time ago.

      Rahim hadn’t needed palace spies to tell him that Harun didn’t want him in Dar-Aman. Had the decision been left to Harun alone when the council had presented Rahim with the ‘Rule or Abdicate’ choice, Harun would’ve preferred Rahim abdicate, so Harun’s own son, Rahim’s distant cousin, could take the throne.

      But despite being presented with a decision he hadn’t been expecting until he was well into his fourth or fifth decade, Rahim had known he had only one choice. Dar-Aman was his home. His ancestors had fought and sacrificed to keep this their home. Rahim wasn’t about to turn his back on it because of hurt feelings or the sentimentality of youth. If anything, his eyes had been opened to the fact that love and fairy tales existed in the minds of the weak and foolish.

      He’d thrived without those ephemeral emotions and there was certainly no room for that in the future of Dar-Aman. Just as there was no room to cater to Harun’s sense of entitlement. But for now, Rahim needed him. Because until he wrought the changes he desperately needed to bring to his kingdom, his hands were tied. In so many ways that he’d lost count. And with each knot he unravelled, it seemed several more sprang up elsewhere.

      ‘I also want a banquet held on Friday night. Make sure all the necessary dignitaries and ministers and their wives are invited,’ he added.

      ‘Of course, it will be done as you wish’ came the reluctant reply. ‘Do you require anything else, Your Highness?’

      ‘If I do, I will let you know.’

      ‘Yes, Your Highness.

      He disconnected, and strode back to the window. The view that greeted him was the same. Verdant grass rolled for almost a quarter mile from the grounds of the royal palace, interspersed in several places by shining mosaic fountains, majestic in stature and elaborately pleasing in their water displays. Much like everywhere in the royal palace, each facet of the landscape had been created with pleasure in mind. Everything his father had done had been first and foremost to please the wife he’d loved above everything and everyone else. Therefore his late father had spared no expense in providing the palace to rival the most magical and luxurious fairy tales, in order to please his mother.

      While she’d been alive, that love had flowed to him, and beyond, to the Dar-Aman people. His home and kingdom had been a charmed place indeed.

      And then she’d died, taking his unborn brother with her, and turning Rahim’s world to darkness.

      Rahim gritted his teeth as long-suppressed wounds threatened to rip open. Those wounds had been straining against the bandages of time since his return to the palace, a place he’d sworn on his eighteenth birthday never to return to. That last, blazing row with his father remained seared in his memory, along with the stiletto-sharp words his father had thrown at him that day. It had shocked him then how quickly fond and happy memories could be replaced with pain and desolation. But no matter how much he’d wished it otherwise, his mother’s death had changed everything, including, for a very long time, his life’s path.

      Even his people hadn’t been spared. Dar-Aman had suffered greatly since the death of its queen.

      Shock didn’t begin to cover his emotions at what Rahim had returned home to six months ago. And he had only himself to blame. From the moment he’d left Dar-Aman fifteen years ago, he’d mentally and emotionally cut all ties with his homeland. The people he’d surrounded himself with might have known he was the heir to a sheikhdom, but they’d been warned in no uncertain terms never to speak about his homeland. The blackout when it came to everything Dar-Aman had been complete.

      Now he stared at the kingdom spread beneath him with regret and sadness.

      Beyond the fairy-tale palace lay miles and miles of construction work, evidence of a painful rebirth where there should’ve been proud growth. Dar-Aman’s infrastructure had been left in the hands of a corrupt and greedy few who’d run the economy to the ground until his return had put an end to the chaos. The government that was once held up by the international community as forward-thinking had been perverted to the point where they were almost archaic.

      His mind veered from the monumental task that lay before him, to the impending visit of Allegra Di Sione. Although Rahim had crossed paths with the Di Sione twin brothers during his ‘party hard’ phase in college and afterwards, he hadn’t taken much note of the rest of the dynastic family. After college, Rahim had been too busy forging a life for himself that didn’t involve Dar-Aman, even though at the back of his mind he’d known he’d have to assume the mantle of sheikh one day. He’d built a successful hedge fund company worth billions, while living life to the fullest in every sense.

      And all the while, his home had been crumbling into decay and apathy. While he could channel his own personal fortune into restoring his kingdom to the respectable powerhouse it’d once been, he was aware of the more problematic issue of his personal image, his past exploits having raised more than a few eyebrows since his return.

      The attention-seeking antics of his teenage years, before he’d parted ways with his father, could have been explained away as youthful hormones.

      But Rahim knew his less than conservative lifestyle was the reason he’d met with so much resistance since his return to Dar-Aman.

      Turning from the window, he returned to his desk.

      Allegra Di Sione’s visit to Dar-Aman couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Her foundation’s work on rights-enhancing on behalf of women, especially in poverty-stricken countries, was just the launching ground Rahim needed for his people. And it wouldn’t hurt to have his own image makeover in the process.

      The Dar-Amanian people needed to believe he was invested in their future. They needed to believe he wasn’t just a playboy flashing by to throw money at a problem before disappearing again. He could do nothing about the reams of media reports about his high-octane lifestyle in the past decade. What he could do was demonstrate that he was here for the long haul. Once their confidence in him was restored, he could lay the firm foundations for his kingdom’s future.

      And Allegra Di Sione was the key to that plan.

      * * *

      Allegra rose and stalked to the door of the plane the moment the seat belt lights flashed off. The anger roiling through her belly threatened to rise up and choke her. She was ashamed that part of it was directed at herself.

      She’d boarded the royal Dar-Aman jet with every intention of hating every minute of the fourteen-hour flight. Instead she’d melted into the soft, luxury leather club chair, and after a brief resistance, graciously accepted the care and attention the staff had lavished